It all started with a Kiss
by kimbee73
Summary: So what happened to Ramona after that random kiss in the season 10 finale? We all know Amy hugged her after finally getting Sheldon to commit to marriage but what then? This story fills in some blanks that probably none of you care about but this has been bugging me for a few weeks now. Sheldon and Amy won the Nobel, how does she feel? Read and find out. One shot only.


**A/N: Okay so this story is a little different than other stories I have written as it is not a pairing story. All the characters are paired with who they are in the show. The story is about Ramona after the kiss. I know some of you hated that story line but to me it brought about the greatest thing, the engagement and subsequent marriage of Shamy. This marriage led to them discovering super asymmetry. **

**I have made up a story that to me seems convincing about what could possibly have happened to Ramona after Amy hugged her three months after she left for Princeton. I know nothing about how long someone stays in a postdoc position except what I read on the internet and that varies from place to place so for the sake of argument, let's pretend this info in here is true. As with all fanfiction, it isn't anyway so who cares. **

**I hope you enjoy this story I wrote with the best of intentions. **

**I own none of these characters. **

What had she been thinking? When she ran into him in the hall at Caltech all she remembered was as an undergraduate how handsome he was then. She didn't even recall the fact that he was an arrogant self-centered jerk who didn't want to share credit with her after she had focused him to finish his work. He had kicked her out of the apartment like she was yesterday's garbage. She had been embarrassed about her crush but then there he was again still at Caltech where she was going to be doing her postdoc. She acted like she knew she would see him and gave him one of the Toblerones she had brought back from Cern. He wanted to hear all about her work there and she was so willing to talk with him again, all the past was forgiven instantly.

After that first lunch, he had invited her to his office to continue their discussion. She was smitten again. But when she arrived she saw a picture on his desk of him and a woman dressed in a gown.

"Who is this?" She had asked him, picking up the picture and examining it carefully. Sheldon had been dressed in a tuxedo. She assumed it was from a wedding.

"Oh that is my girlfriend Amy and I at prom." He answered as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

"Prom?" She had asked.

"Oh yes. A couple of years ago, Amy and our friend Bernadette thought it would be fun to have a prom redo since so many of us had had bad experiences at our own proms in the past. We got all dressed up and they decorated the roof of our building." He was smiling, recalling that evening.

"It must have been a great night, judging by the smile on your face." She said to him.

"Oh well it started out a little shaky. I had a panic attack because Amy looked so beautiful. I ran into my room and had to put my feet up to relax. But then Amy was going to leave and go without me so I decided to come out and tell her she looked pretty. She then reassured me that just because I thought she looked pretty didn't mean we had to spend the night together. We had not slept together at that point so I was afraid she might have expectations."

"Wait, you hadn't slept with her? How long had to been dating?" Ramona interrupted.

"At that point, almost 5 years." He answered.

"Five years and you hadn't slept together? Wow." Ramona said, thinking he wasn't serious about this woman. She was beginning to think she had a chance.

"Yes. And she had a panic attack when I told her. She couldn't believe I said it first."

"She had a panic attack because you said you loved her?" Ramona laughed.

"Well I knew I had feelings for her but I just couldn't pin point what they were. I realized that it was love the summer before when I had run away." He said.

"You ran away?" Ramona had asked.

"Well things were changing too fast for me and I couldn't handle it. I just went to the train station and left. I was gone for 45 days when all my stuff got stolen. I had a lot of time to think while on that trip. Then Leonard showed up with Amy and I knew then that the feelings were love. It took me a couple of months to tell her though." He said. "Then about 6 months after that, she broke up with me."

"So if she broke up with you, why do you still have the picture?" She asked.

"Oh we got back together six months later. I had this song stuck in my head that I could not place. When I figured out the name of the song and realized why it was stuck in my head, I rushed over to her place to tell her that I was wrong and I wanted to be with her." He explained. "She was on a date but she kicked him out and accepted me back. We've been together ever since. Actually we've been living together for a few months." He told her.

"Well that is wonderful. I can't wait to meet her." Ramona said to him.

"Well it will be a few months. She is currently doing research at Princeton. She will be back in August." He said.

"Oh really? What does she do for a living?" She asked curiously.

"She is a neurobiologist here at Caltech. When we met she was working at UCLA." He said. "This fellowship in Princeton is temporary."

"I see." Ramona was already forming a plan how he could win Sheldon away from Amy.

When she met Amy on Skype she knew she could succeed in winning Sheldon over. Amy was so much different it wouldn't even be hard. All she had to do was convince Sheldon they were a better match. The problem was his friends seemed to be interfering in her plans. First Bernadette sat right between them at dinner then Penny suggested they all walk her out when Amy told Sheldon he was tired. He wasn't tired but she could tell Sheldon listened to everything Amy told him.

She decided she would make him lunch the next day and put her feelings for him out there. He would see how much better they would be together than some neurobiologist.

He seemed so happy that she had brought him lunch. She remembered the conversation well. She knocked on his door and he looked up at her.

"Hey, did you eat yet?" She asked him.

"Breakfast yes, lunch no. I did have a cough drop, but that really rides the line between sucking and eating." He had answered.

"Well perfect. I made us sandwiches." She told him.

"How thoughtful. Thank you."

"No big deal, I enjoy spending time with you." This had not been a lie. She had decided to lay it out there for him to know. Now was as good a time as any to tell him the truth.

"And I with you." Her stomach did a flip at that. Then he asked her. "Question, are you seeking a romantic relationship with me?" She was elated. Maybe he did feel the same way. Now there was no way she was turning back. She was going to tell him.

"What if I were?" She held her breath. This was the moment of truth. If he felt the same way, he would tell her. Unfortunately, he started blabbing about some kind of problems that would arise from her feeling this way. She didn't care, she had told him what she wanted, now she was going to show him. She heard.

"I am currently in a relation…." But she didn't let him finish the sentence. She leaned and kissed him. She knew it was a mistake the moment she did it. She could see the look of shock on his face. He did not want this. He was in love with Amy, he had told her as much. "Excuse me a moment." He had said and walked out of his office. She did not wait for him to come back, which was good since he had apparently gone home and then made his way to the airport to head to New Jersey.

The next day when Raj walked over to her, she really didn't want anything to do with him. He had a smug look about him. She only hoped he wouldn't hit on her again. She already felt bad enough about what she did to Sheldon.

"Hello Ramona." He said to her.

"Hello." She said politely back to him.

"Why are you sitting alone?" He asked smugly. Before she could answer, "Oh that's right, Sheldon is in New Jersey being engaged to Amy."

"I heard." She said. The rumors had been going around the moment she walked into work that morning. She figured they were true but this was confirmation.

"Now that Sheldon is out of the picture, I could give you one more chance to go out with me." He said to her.

Really? She thought to herself. Of all the things he could have said that was what came out of his mouth. First Howard all those years ago and now Raj. "Nope I'm good." She told him.

"You sure?" He asked. "I will not ask again."

"I sincerely hope not."

"Very well. I'm going to leave before this gets awkward." And he walked away straight out of the cafeteria. She saw Leonard and Howard looking at him in disbelief. Then they looked at her and she put her head down. She prayed they were not the next ones to come over and she was relieved when they left a few minutes later. She knew that it was going to be awkward when Sheldon came back. She wasn't sure how she was going to face him.

She was very lucky when he came back. He basically avoided her at all costs. The one time they did interact, he was very cordial. She decided she needed to say something to him.

"Sheldon, can we talk?" She asked him.

"Dr. Nowitzki, I think you said more than enough a few weeks ago." He said to her.

"Yeah about that. I want to apologize." She said.

"Apology accepted now if you will excuse me." He thought if he just forgave her, she would leave him alone.

"Come on can't we talk?" She pleaded.

"No we cannot. You violated my trust a few weeks ago. After what happened a few years ago I should have known you couldn't be trusted but I had let that be in the past. You somehow wormed your way into my life again then tried to begin a relationship with me even though you knew I had a girlfriend. But I guess I should thank you in a way because you kissing me made me realize that Amy was the only one in my life I ever want to kiss again."

"I know and congratulations on your engagement. I just wanted you to understand that I know I was stupid to think I could steal you away from your girlfriend and I am truly sorry for what I did. I won't even try and make excuses for my behavior, I just hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me someday."

"Listen, I am not the one you really need to be apologizing to. It is Amy whom you hurt. She trusted me and I let you get too close. Part of this is my fault and while she did accept my proposal, we had a long talk about my instincts. Clearly I did not see that you were looking for a relationship all those years ago and obviously not this time either. I don't know why you thought it was okay to try to start a relationship with me because I made it clear that I had a girlfriend. Even you said it while having dinner with my friends, I talked about her all the time. What is your reasoning? I am curious." Sheldon asked her.

"I can honestly say that remembering all the fun we had when I was an undergraduate came flooding back and I thought we could pick up where we left off."

"But we had nothing." He told her. "If I recall all you wanted was to share credit for something you didn't actually do."

"I know." She said. "But I thought that if we could work together again, maybe this time you would want to share credit and we could win a Nobel Prize together."

"Well that won't be happening. As I said, I accept your apology but I will not be working with you or near you anytime in the near future. So I would ask that you not try and contact me or even talk to me again."

"Understood." Ramona said.

Three months later:

Ramona was sitting at lunch checking her email on her phone when she heard a fuss over on the other side of the cafeteria. She glanced up briefly and saw Sheldon had walked in with Amy. She went back to looking at her phone, not wanting to be caught looking at them. She heard the unmistakable voice of a woman standing next to her. "Dr. Nowitzki?" She said.

"Oh Dr. Fowler. Um, hello." She said nervously. She had no idea what Dr. Fowler would do or say.

"Thank you. Thank you so much." Amy said to her and then she did the most unexpected thing. She hugged her. Ramona was taken aback. She had no idea what to do next. She just patted Amy's arm and looked over at the guys who looked just as perplexed as she was.

After she completed her postdoc, Ramona went on to work at Fermilab in Chicago. She had been really interested in the work done there and was thrilled to be put on a team with what she thought was two extremely competent physicists, Drs. Kevin Campbell and Greg Pemberton. They seemed to know what they were doing, well Dr. Campbell did. Dr. Pemberton always just agreed with Dr. Campbell and complained a lot about his wife, Linda.

Less than a year after she started working with them, the two were doing an experiment on kaon decay. They were failing miserably until Ramona pointed out an article that had been published the month prior. Their experiment, while completely accidental, had seemed to support predictions on higher order corrections pertaining to super asymmetry. They had no idea what that was but it seemed they were now on well on their way to winning a Nobel Prize for their discovery. They were on their way to Caltech to meet the writers of the paper. They had asked Ramona if she would like to join them since she had shown them the article. As she knew the writers of said article and had promised them she would never speak to them again, she declined. Sheldon and Amy would see right through these two and would probably win the prize for themselves.

The two set off and came back more determined to win the Nobel then before they left.

"What happened?" Ramona asked them.

"Well Dr. Cooper won't go in with us to win the Nobel." Dr. Pemberton told her.

"Why not?" She asked. "It has been his lifelong dream to win one."

"How would you know that?" Dr. Campbell asked her.

"I met Dr. Cooper when I was an undergraduate at Caltech." She told them.

"Wait, didn't you do your postdoc work at Caltech also?" Campbell asked. "Did you work with Dr. Cooper then also."

"No I did not. We saw each other but really didn't interact." She said, not wanting to go into details about their history.

"I don't believe it." Pemberton said. "You are the one that told us about the paper. You are the one that encouraged us to go with the three of us for the Nobel. What aren't you telling us?"

"Fine. I worked with Sheldon several years ago when I was an undergraduate. I wanted him to share credit with me on a paper he wrote. He then kicked me out of his apartment and his life. Last year when I was doing my postdoc I ran into him again. He and I shared a few meals and that was that."

"Are you sure?" Campbell asked.

"Oh there was that business when I tried to start a relationship with him." She said.

"Wait, what?" Pemberton asked her.

"Yeah but he was with his wife and he didn't take to kindly to me kissing him. As a matter of fact, he told me if I hadn't kissed him, he may not have gotten engaged when he did. He said when I kissed him he realized that Amy was the only one he ever wanted to kiss again."

"Well that now makes sense he wouldn't want to leave his wife out of the picture. Why would you think he would?" Campbell asked.

"Because like I said, it is his lifelong dream to win a Nobel. I figured he may just agree because he really wants it. Apparently I was wrong. He has more integrity than I thought." Ramona said.

"Well without the support of Caltech, we may not be able to win this thing." Pemberton told them. "We don't even know what super asymmetry is."

"Well maybe you need to go about it a different way." Ramona said. She hatched a plan to have the men go on a publicity tour and make videos to win over the country. She knew Sheldon and Amy would not stoop to that level so she thought if they could win people over with charm, they may be able to bluff their way through super asymmetry.

Then it happened, while at a reception for Sheldon and Amy, Amy lost her mind, calling Greg and Kevin imposters and taking credit for all the work. She did this in front a room full of Nobel Laureates. Ramona thought Campbell and Pemberton had the Nobel in the bag after that. She couldn't have been more wrong.

Weeks later someone leaked information out that Greg Pemberton had plagiarized his doctoral thesis. Fermi lab fired him and the Nobel committee clearly could not declare them winner because of the fraud.

Months later Ramona heard that Sheldon and Amy had in fact won the Nobel Prize in physics for their discovery of super asymmetry. She had quit Fermi lab, sighting working with frauds was not her thing. She was back on the west coast working at UCLA. She thought about calling them and congratulating them on their accomplishments but she had promised to never talk to them again. She was going to keep that word.

When she watched Sheldon's acceptance speech, she cried. All she had ever wanted from him was recognition for helping him focus on his career but it had been his friends all along. They were the ones that were there for him and knew him the best. They were the ones that supported him even when he was difficult as he said. He had each of his friends stand up and talked a little bit about them. He even told Leonard and Penny that they were going to have smart and beautiful babies, even if Penny hadn't made the announcement to her parents. It was a very moving speech. She liked to think she played a part in the whole thing even if she hadn't done a damn thing but plant a kiss on a man she would never have.

**Okay we all know that last line is bull crap but it was fun to end with her thinking she facilitated it all...**

**Please if you liked this story leave me a review. I really appreciate them. Now I am off to finish some unfinished stories sitting in my file folders. **


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